June, 30 2022, 11:46am EDT
Green New Deal Network Slams Supreme Court Decision on WV v. EPA
SCOTUS decision to limit EPA power under the Clean Air Act puts our climate and communities at risk.
GNDN endorses expanding number of SCOTUS justices, restoring balance to the Court.
WASHINGTON
Today, the Green New Deal Network (GNDN) members released the following statements in response to the Supreme Court's 6-3 decision on West Virginia v. the Environmental Protection Agency (WV v. EPA), a ruling that sharply limits EPA's power to regulate harmful power plant emissions. This most recent attack by a GOP-backed Supreme Court on our health and communities will undermine half a century of health, environmental, and climate justice advocacy, giving a lifeline to fossil fuel corporations who have kept us hostage to unreliable, dirty, and expensive energy.
In response to the conservative hijacking of the Supreme Court and the unelected Justices' assault on our climate, health, democracy, and human rights, GNDN is demanding that our elected leaders take the following actions:
Pass the reconciliation package in Congress and invest in climate, care, jobs and justice;
Use remaining authority of the EPA to limit greenhouse gasses at the source under Section 111 and more broadly through other Clean Air Act provisions;
Establish new, stronger EPA standards to reduce carbon and toxic pollution, invoke the Defense Production Act (DPA) to speed the production of renewable energy technologies, stop new fossil fuel projects, and declare a climate emergency;
Activate Congressional authority to expand the Supreme Court through the Judiciary Act of 2021.
"We are extremely heartbroken and enraged at SCOTUS' latest attack on our rights, our democracy, and our lives. Today's WV v. EPA ruling threatens the government's ability to stop the climate crisis and enact a Green New Deal. It hands over more power to corporate executives who will make record profits while our communities choke, burn, and flood," said John Paul Meija, Sunrise Movement National Spokesperson. "A Supreme Court that sides with the fossil fuel industry over the health and safety of its people is beyond broken. We cannot and will not let our Democratic leaders standby while the GOP goes on the offense. If our Democratic leaders are really as outraged as they say they are, they must urgently pass legislation to expand the court, as well as pass sweeping Executive Actions to substantially reduce the harm caused by this devastating ruling."
"This decision is a victory for big energy companies, and a lethal blow to everyone else," said WFP National Director Maurice Mitchell. "Once again, a handful of Republican Justices have decided the fate of millions of regular people whose ability to work and take care of their families will suffer as a result. Passivity isn't an option for the White House - either President Biden and Congress immediately uses their power to fight this with bold investments in clean energy, or they co-sign a Supreme Court decision that will make the worst effects of the climate crisis even more extreme, and make our chances at fighting it even slimmer."
"The Clean Air Act is crucial for keeping fossil fuel executives from profiting off of outdated, dirty, and expensive power plants. For the often Black, brown, and low-income communities that live in the shadow of polluting infrastructure, the Clean Air Act is a pathway to facilitating a transition to a clean and affordable energy future and ending the climate crisis. When communities across the country are grappling with climate disasters, toxic pollution, and dirty energy sources, the Federal government needs to provide solutions. With one fell swoop, the Supreme Court made achieving climate and environmental justice even harder at a time when we need it the most. Since the GOP-backed Supreme Court Justices have shown themselves to be climate criminals, we must pursue systemic changes to the Court, even as we push Congress, the White House, and state and city governments to step up to ensure bold, urgent investments for climate, care, jobs and justice," said Keya Chatterjee, Executive Director of US Climate Action Network.
"Our communities should be able to rely on our lawmakers to regulate emissions and toxins to protect the people, our communities, and Mother Earth but, now, that imperative is being repealed by the largely Republican influenced Supreme Court. Those on the frontlines of the climate crisis fought hard to enact measures such as the Clean Air Act and the subsequent Clean Power Plan; we can't afford for more to be eroded," said Bineshi Albert, Co-Executive Director of Climate Justice Alliance"Instead of cowering to the oil, coal, and gas industries and their lobbyists, the Supreme Court should ensure that people's health and well-being is safeguarded and protected, not the profits of big business."
"The Right has plotted for years to capture the Supreme Court so they could systematically dismantle every single environmental protection poor and working class communities have won," People's Action Lead Climate Justice Organizer Ben Ishibashi said. "This Court's conservative supermajority won't defend us from corporate predators; only we can do that. We recommit to fighting for our communities and our planet. We will continue to push the Biden administration and Congress to defend us, keep our air clean, and shut down corporate polluters. We will also organize our local communities to protect and govern ourselves in the face of climate catastrophe and the corporate attack on democracy."
"This disastrous decision confirms we can no longer count on the Supreme Court, which has been packed with right-wing extremists, to uphold critical environmental protection laws and the government's ability to implement them. With almost every decision, this court demonstrates that it is hellbent on dismantling our system of government and rolling back basic governmental functions, like regulating clean air and water. In order to address the climate crisis we are facing Congress must pass climate legislation to invest in clean energy, frontline communities, and jobs. We must also expand the Court so that 6 hyper-partisan, unelected conservative justices can't undo the laws of the land," said Ann Clancy, Associate Director of Climate Policy, Indivisible.
"Radicals in robes are severely restricting the federal government's ability to protect people and the ecosystems that support life. In 2018, air pollution from burning fossil fuels like coal and gas was responsible for about 1 in 5 deaths worldwide. It is unconscionable that 6 Supreme Court Justices have ruled in favor of sacrificing more lives to enrich millionaire coal and oil barons. We should instead focus on securing a just transition to renewable energy that centers on the well-being of workers and communities. With their rulings on union organizing, voting rights, and abortion rights, the majority of this Court have revealed themselves to be beholden to corporate overlords and intent on dismantling the norms and institutions of democracy, including our ability to use the levers of government to protect the health and safety of our families, communities, and future generations," said John Noel, Senior Climate Campaigner at Greenpeace USA.
"For decades, frontline environmental justice communities all across this country have waged powerful campaigns to protect our children and loved ones from breathing toxic air, drinking contaminated water, and facing life threatening illness from waste buried in the lands where we live, work, and play. All of this hangs in the balance in the face of this political moment," said Jaron Browne, Organizing Director at Grassroots Global Justice Alliance. "The right-wing extremist Supreme Court majority has laid bare in decisions from undoing Roe to West Virginia their contempt for racial and gender justice, and their willingness to sacrifice our survival for the sake of corporate power and profit. They have already illegitimized themselves, and our power must be reclaimed in our organizing and resistance."
The compromise of the Clean Air Act comes on the heels of a series of assaults by the Supreme Court on our democracy and human rights from the repeal of Roe v. Wade to limiting the ability to enforce Miranda rights. SCOTUS has gone as far as compromising the authority of states to protect their constituents, as witnessed by the overturning of state-based gun reform laws. Over the past month, the GOP-backed Supreme Court's litany of dangerous decisions is proof that these unelected Justices are out of step with the American people.
The Green New Deal Network is a 50-state campaign with a national table of 15 organizations: Center for Popular Democracy, Climate Justice Alliance, Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, Greenpeace, Indigenous Environmental Network, Indivisible, Movement for Black Lives, MoveOn, People's Action, Right To The City Alliance, Service Employees International Union, Sierra Club, Sunrise Movement, US Climate Action Network, and the Working Families Party.
LATEST NEWS
Supreme Court Urged to 'Rule Quickly' After Trump Immunity Arguments
"It'd be a travesty for justices to delay matters further," said one legal expert.
Apr 25, 2024
After about three hours of oral arguments Thursday on former President Donald Trump's immunity claims, legal experts and democracy defenders urged the U.S. Supreme Court to rule swiftly, with just over six months until the November election.
Trump—the presumptive Republican candidate to challenge Democratic President Joe Biden, despite his 88 felony charges in four ongoing criminal cases—is arguing that presidential immunity should protect him from federal charges for trying to overturn his 2020 loss to Biden, which culminated in the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Justices across the ideological spectrum didn't seem inclined to support Trump's broad immunity claims—which critics have said "reflect a misreading of constitutional text and history as well as this court's precedent." However, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) shared examples of what it would mean if they did.
"Trump could sell pardons, ambassadorships, and other official benefits to his wealthy donors, members of his clubs, or cronies who helped him commit other crimes," CREW warned. "Trump could sell nuclear codes and government secrets to help pay back crippling debts."
"But this isn't just about what Donald Trump could do. It's really about how total immunity for the president would threaten our democratic system of checks and balances," the group continued. "The president could order the military to assassinate activists, political opponents, members of Congress, or even Supreme Court justices, so long as he claimed it related to some official act."
After warning that a president could also order the occupation or closure of the Capitol or high court to prevent actions against him, CREW concluded that "the Supreme Court never should have taken this appeal up in the first place. They should rule quickly and shut these ludicrous claims down for good."
The organization was far from alone in demanding a quick decision from the nation's highest court.
"In the name of accountability, the court must not delay its decision," the Brennan Center for Justice said Thursday evening. "The Supreme Court's time is up. It needs to let the prosecution move forward. The court decided Bush v. Gore in three days—it should act with similar alacrity in deciding Trump v. U.S."
In Bush v. Gore, the case that decided the 2000 election, the high court issued a related stay on December 9, heard oral arguments on December 11, and issued a final decision on December 12.
On Thursday, the arguments "got away from the central question: Is a former president immune from criminal prosecution if he tried to overthrow a presidential election, using private means and the power of his office to do so?" the Brennan Center noted. "The answer is simple: No."
"It is not an 'official act' to try to overthrow the peaceful transfer of power or the Constitution, even if you conspire with other government officials to do it or use the Oval Office phone," the center said. "Trump's attorney was pushing the court to come up with a sea change in the law. That's unnecessary and a delay tactic that will hurt the pursuit of justice in this case."
In a departure from previous claims, Trump's attorney, D. John Sauer, "appeared to agree with Special Counsel Jack Smith, who is leading the prosecution, that there are some allegations in the indictment that do not involve 'official acts' of the president," NBC Newsreported, noting questions from liberal Justice Elena Kagan and conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee.
Barrett summarized various allegations from the indictment and in three cases—involving dishonest election claims, false allegations of fraud, and fake electors—Sauer conceded that Trump's alleged conduct sounded private, suggesting that a more narrow case against the ex-president that excluded any potential official acts could proceed.
Due to Trump attorney's concessions in Supreme Court oral argument, there's now a very clear path for DOJ's case to go forward.\n\nIt'd be a travesty for Justices to delay matters further.\n\nJustice Amy Coney Barrett got Trump attorney to concede core allegations are private acts.\u2b07\ufe0f— (@)
According to NBC:
Matthew Seligman, a lawyer and a fellow at the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School who filed a brief backing prosecutors, said Sauer's concessions highlight that Trump is "not immune for the vast majority of the conduct alleged in the indictment."
Ultimately, he said, the case will go to trial "absent some external intervention—like Trump ordering [the Justice Department] to drop the charges" after having won the election.
At the same time, Sauer's backtracking might have little consequence from an electoral perspective. Further delay in a trial, which Sauer is close to achieving, is a form of victory in itself.
Slate's Mark Joseph Stern pointed out that when Barrett similarly questioned Michael Dreeben, the U.S. Department of Justice lawyer arguing the case for Smith, it seemed like they "were trying to work out some compromise wherein the trial court could distinguish between official and unofficial acts, then instruct the jury not to impose criminal liability on the former."
"It was fascinating to watch Barrett nodding along as Dreeben pitched a compromise that would largely preserve Smith's January 6 prosecution but limit what the jury could hear, or at least consider," Stern added. "That, though, would take months to suss out in the trial court. More delays!"
Stern and other experts signaled that the decision likely comes down to Barrett and Chief Justice John Roberts, with the three liberals seemingly supporting the prosecution of Trump and the other four conservatives suggesting it is unconstitutional.
People for the American Way president Svante Myrick said in a statement that "today's argument brought both good and bad news. It was chilling to hear Donald Trump's lawyer say that staging a military coup could be considered part of a president's official duties."
"Thankfully, the majority of the court, including conservative justices, did not seem to buy that very broad Trump argument that a former president is absolutely immune from prosecution under any circumstances," Myrick added. "On the other hand, it's not clear that there is a majority on this court that will quickly reject the immunity arguments and let the case go forward in time for a trial before the election. That's a huge concern."
Trump was not at the Supreme Court on Thursday; he was at his trial in New York, where he faces 34 counts for allegedly falsifying business records related to hush money payments to cover up sex scandals during the 2016 election cycle. The are two other cases: a federal one for mishandling classified material and another in Georgia for interfering with the last presidential contest.
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'Just the Beginning': 50+ Arrested for Blockading Citigroup Bank Over Climate Crimes
"Through people-powered resistance, we can give money a conscience and stop Citi's destruction of our planet," said one Indigenous campaigner.
Apr 25, 2024
Twenty more demonstrators were arrested Thursday, the second day of Earth Week protests targeting Citigroup's Manhattan headquarters in what organizers called "the beginning of a wave of direct actions to take place over the summer targeting big banks for creating climate chaos that is killing our communities and our planet."
Protest organizers—who include Climate Defenders, New York Communities for Change, Planet over Profit, and Stop the Money Pipeline—said 53 activists were arrested over two days of demonstrations, which included blocking the entrance to Citigroup's headquarters, to "demand that the bank stop funding fossil fuels."
Organizers said this week's demonstrations "were just the beginning" of what they're calling a "Summer of Heat" targeting big banks for their role in the climate emergency and for "polluting our land, air, and water, and threatening the health of children, families, and our planet." Citigroup is the world's second-largest fossil fuel financier.
"We're holding Citi accountable for financing dirty fossil fuels from Canada to Latin America and beyond," said Chief Na'moks of the Wet'suwet'en Nation, one of several Indigenous leaders who took part in the action. "Through people-powered resistance, we can give money a conscience and stop Citi's destruction of our planet."
Jonathan Westin, executive director of Climate Defenders, asserted that "Citigroup's racist funding of oil, coal, and gas is creating climate chaos that's devastating communities of color across the country."
"We're taking action to tell Citi that we won't put up with their environmental racism for one more day," Westin continued. "Our communities have reached the boiling point. Our children have asthma, our city's sky was orange, and our air polluted because of the climate crisis caused by Citi and Wall Street."
"We're going to keep organizing and taking direct action until Citi listens to us," he vowed.
Stop the Money Pipeline co-director Alec Connon said: "To have any chance of reigning in the climate crisis, we must stop investing in fossil fuel expansion. Yet, Citibank is pumping billions of dollars into new coal, oil, and gas projects."
"We're here to make it clear: If they're going to fund the companies disrupting our climate and our lives, we're going to disrupt their business," Connon added.
Activists have repeatedly targeted Citigroup in recent years as the megabank has pumped more than $300 billion into fossil fuel investments around the world since the Paris climate agreement.
According to the protest organizers:
Citi has provided $668 million in funding to Formosa Plastics between 2001-2021, which is trying to build a $9.4 billion plastics facility in a majority Black community in the heart of Cancer Alley in Louisiana.
Citigroup is also one of the biggest funders of state-run oil and gas companies in the Amazon basin, pumping in over $40 billion between 2016-2020, and a major backer of Petroperú, which has been involved in oil spills and Indigenous rights violations.
"From wildfires, heatwaves, and floods to deadly air pollution and mass drought, Citi's fossil fuel financing is killing us," said Alice Hu of New York Communities for Change. "We've sent polite petitions and had pleading meetings with bank representatives, but Citi refuses to stop pouring billions each year into coal, oil, and gas."
"That's why we're fighting for our lives now with the best tool we have left: mass, nonviolent disruptive civil disobedience," Hu added.
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No Outside Probe, US Reiterates as Gazans Reportedly Buried Alive in Mass Grave
"How does it ever make sense that the United States asks the accused party to examine itself?" asked one incredulous reporter.
Apr 25, 2024
A Biden administration spokesperson once again brushed off calls for an independent investigation into how hundreds of Palestinians found in mass graves near Gaza hospitals died when asked Thursday about new reports that many of the victims were tortured, summarily executed—and in some cases, buried alive by Israeli invaders.
During a Thursday U.S. State Department press conference in Washington, D.C., a reporter noted Gaza officials' claim that mass grave victims "including children were tortured before being killed" and that "some even showed signs of being buried alive, along with other crimes against humanity."
"What's wrong with an independent, scientific, forensic investigation?"
Noting calls by Palestinian officials and United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk for an independent probe into mass graves, the reporter said that "this administration repeatedly said that it asks... the Israeli government to investigate itself."
"How does it ever make sense that the United States asks the accused party to examine itself and provide reports that you have previously said that you actually trust?" the reporter asked State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel. "What's wrong with an independent, scientific, forensic investigation?"
Patel replied: "We continue to find these reports incredibly troubling. And that's why yesterday you saw the national security adviser for this to be thoroughly investigated."
While National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan on Wednesday called reports of mass grave atrocities "deeply disturbing" and said that "we want answers" from Israel, he did not call for an independent investigation.
When the reporter pressed Patel on the legitimacy of asking Israel to investigate itself, Patel said, "we believe that through a thorough investigation we can get some additional answers."
Thursday's exchange followed a similar back-and-forth on Tuesday between Patel and Said Arikat, a journalist for the Jerusalem-based
Palestinian news outlet al-Quds who asked about the mass graves.
At least 392 bodies—including numerous women and children—have been found in mass graves outside Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, where Palestinian Civil Defense and other workers have been exhuming victims for nearly a week. Officials believe there are as many as 700 bodies in three separate mass graves.
Based on more recent exhumations, local Civil Defense chief Yamen Abu Sulaiman said during a Wednesday press conference that "we believe that the occupation buried alive at least 20 people at the Nasser Medical Complex."
"There are cases of field execution of some patients while undergoing surgeries and wearing surgical gowns," he stated, adding that some victims showed signs of torture and 10 bodies had medical tubes attached to them.
Gaza Civil Defense official Mohammed Mughier told reporters that "we need forensic examination" to definitively determine the causes of death for the 20 people believed to have been buried alive.
Previous reporting on the mass graves quoted rescue workers who said they found people who were apparently executed while their hands were bound, with some victims missing heads, skin, and internal organs.
Other mass graves have been found in Gaza, most notably on the grounds of al-Shifa Hospital, where Israeli forces last month committed what the Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor called "one of the largest massacres in Palestinian history."
It's also not the first time there have been reports of Israeli troops burying victims alive during the current war, in which Palestinian and international officials say Israeli forces have killed or wounded more than 122,000 Gazans, including at least 11,000 people who are missing and feared dead. Israeli forces attacking Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia last December reportedly bulldozed and buried alive dozens of injured patients and displaced people.
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